Denovo Independence has nearly completed remediation of soils contaminated with toxic medals in the mountainous area north of East Fork, even though the company has no assurances that it will ever be able to develop the land it now owns, as it originally planned.
Nonetheless, the company, out of its own pocket, funded removal or capping of more than 100,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with arsenic, lead and other toxic metals from old mining operations in the Triumph area. The company has declined to say how much the cleanup cost, but the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality says that it is thus far pleased with the work Denovo has done.
"I hope that the community sees that what they did was a good thing," said Bruce Wicherski, the DEQ's voluntary cleanup program manager. "They followed up on the cleanup part with no clear assurance that there was going to be development."
Others are not so happy with Denovo. The city of Sun Valley ended the company's annexation and development plans for the area in 2009 and Denovo now finds itself in Blaine County 5th District Court in a lawsuit with an environmental consulting company that claims Denovo owes it nearly $350,000 for work performed in cleanup.
In fact, Golder Associates, an international environmental services company, obtained a default judgment against Denovo Independence in November after it failed to respond when the suit was filed the previous month.
That's not to say the lawsuit is over. Golder also listed as defendants in its complaint two other entities that it claims may have a financial interest in the Denovo Independence property. Denovo Properties, the parent company of Denovo Independence, and Sun Valley Credit Co. have both filed responses with the court to Golder's complaint.
"The lawsuit that I filed on behalf of Golder was a collection action," said Golder's Boise attorney, Bruce Smith. "I've got a default judgment against the people who own the property, but we're in the very preliminary part of a lawsuit that's going to go on for a while."
Golder claims in the complaint that it has not been paid for "professional services" performed for the cleanup between July 2008 and January 2010.
Denovo Independence
Denovo Independence and Denovo Properties are headquartered in Chicago. Denovo specializes in purchasing and remediating contaminated properties for development and came into the Wood River Valley in 2008 when it bought 850 acres for about $6 million in the mountainous area between Elkhorn and East Fork.
Denovo had grandiose plans for what it called the Independence project. First, it planned to clean up contaminated soil at four mining sites within the property, including the Independence and North Star mines and the Triumph mining shaft and tunnel. Denovo entered into a voluntary cleanup pact with DEQ and work got underway to remediate the area.
Also as part of the plan, Denovo intended to subdivide 93 acres into 15 home sites and to dedicate the remainder of the property as open space for conservation purposes and recreational opportunities.
The company ran into trouble with the plan in late 2009 when the city of Sun Valley declined to annex the area and amend its ordinances to accommodate the Denovo development. Without annexation, Denovo was subject to Blaine County's Mountain Overlay District ordinance, which severely restricts residential development in rural mountainous areas.
Denovo filed a lawsuit in 5th District Court in October 2009 against Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Co., headquartered in Nebraska and the parent company of Sun Valley Title Co. The complaint alleged that Sun Valley Title provided inaccurate information regarding zoning ordinances in the area. That lawsuit was settled out of court and dismissed on Nov. 30. Terms of the settlement were not made public.
Denovo's future
In an interview Tuesday, Denovo Properties Senior Vice President Richard Vorpahl declined to discuss whether the company will take another shot at development of the Independence project. He said the question needed to be directed to CEO Brian Pitkin, who was on vacation and unavailable for comment.
"I can tell you this," Vorpahl said, "that the cleanup was completed last fall and we're close to getting final closure from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. "The site has been remediated. Hopefully it's appreciated."
Wicherski confirmed that Denovo has kept its commitment for cleanup of the mining areas.
"They are basically done with all of those tasks except with the vegetation tasks," Wicherski said, referring to Denovo's commitment to replant the remediated areas with native vegetation.
He said the company also needs to complete a financial agreement for future monitoring of the cleanup areas.
"They've completed the vast bulk of the work," he said.
Wicherski was asked if he thought Denovo would complete the final tasks even though the company's development plans have been stymied.
"Up until now they've done everything that they said they would do, so I have no reason to believe otherwise," he said.
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
Denovo Independence has nearly completed its promise to remediate contaminated soil in the Triumph Mine area, even though the company has thus far been shot down by local officials in its development plans for the mountainous area north of East Fork. Photo by Mountain Express
